The Microsoft WINDOWS NT operating system, sold by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., provides a point and print capability. In other words, a user of the workstation that runs the operating system merely needs to identify a target printer on the network (such as by pointing a mouse cursor at an icon for the printer) and then request to print a document in order to print on the target printer. Critical printer configuration information (such as the printer driver and other printer configuration data) is stored on the print servers for network printers. Each print server is a dedicated machine that runs the same operating system and is responsible for controlling a grouped of one or more printers. The print server stores the critical printer configuration information for the printers that are associated with it. When an application requests to initiate a print job, the print server retrieves a copy of printer driver for the printer to the requesting workstation and carries out the print request via a remote procedure call (“RPC”) mechanism. The retrieval of the printer configuration information and the installation of the printer are transparent to the user.